Making Hits For Christ, Instead of Al Capone Or Whitey Bulger

SOMETIMES, THINGS JUST DON'T ADD UP. Then, upon further reflection, they start to. Facts fall into place. Patterns emerge and form. Down at my small town senior center in my Bible belt small southern town, there's a dude form Boston, seventy five years old, with a by gosh Bawston accent, and a fanaticism about the Christian faith. And I do mean fanaticism. He's illiterate, Can't read a lick, so he preaches instead of handing out pamphlets. Dumbest, most obnoxious piece of sub human flesh ever I had the great misfortune to encounter, hands down. Crude, boorish, and uncouth don't begin to cover it. Anyone. Never stops preaching. No matter how devout you happen to be, this ghetto snipe is holier than thou, and let's you know it, in spades. The typical psychological profile of a johnny come lately to Christ, way too over the top crazy fanatic. Hell hath no fury like a born for the first time religious fanatic. They have a lot of compensating to do. This guy is scary rough, in dress, in speech, in mannerisms. I told him flat out: keep your hands off me, or I call the cops. been here about forty years, here in the middle of nowhere. Why? I've been wondering, what's a fine Christian illiterate man from some Boston hell hole doing in a small southern nowheres-ville? what did he escape, all those years ago? Ole by looks pretty rough, like some rough character gone good. Too good. Too good and too damned far away from home. In an inspiration of John Grisham proportions, a possible answer came to me. this boy is a former enforcer for whitey Bulger, and his Irish Hell's kitchen mafia, or whatever exactly the famous criminal gang was and is. Whitey, you'll recall, ran the Boston rackets for years before going on the lamb for a decade and a half, was finally apprehended by America's finest, sent away, and died like the ignominious scum bag he chose to be. it was all over the news, as it made perfect copy for our sensation seeking mainstream media, and perfect fodder for our voyeuristic nation of crime loving Jesse James wannabes. The american people never met an organized criminal they didn't fall in love with, topping the list with lovely folks like Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, and, of course, the inimitable Jesse and Frank James. Please don't be mad, Pretty Boy; I haven't forgotten you. Nobody has. Whitey Bulgar. must have had a veritable slew of enforcers, guys who were willing, able and ready to break a leg a the drop of a hundred dollar bill from the big man. No self respecting head of a crime syndicate ever leaves home without his enforcer. Tough guys like that always find work, and what else is some poor bastard from the slums who never learned how to read going to do for a living in this modern world? The down side is hit men tend to make enemies, and eventually pursue an alternative career, get rubbed out (I love mafia talk), or hit the road, and disappear deep into the wilderness of nowhere, and it sure doesn't help to find Christ along the way. there's bound to be a certain amount of guilt with that kind of baggage, and Christ heals all moral sins, and brings utter and complete redemption, as well as a damned good cover. A reformed killer, running to the woods to save his lousy skin, finding the Lord deep in the woods, and shoving Jesus down the throats of the less than adequately devout, just like the old days, only with a different bill of goods to push. it just doesn't get any better than that. Might be worth somebody's time to give John Grisham a call. Of course, this nasty little narrative might not quite be over. I'll bet Grisham could find a way to wrap it up nice and tight, assuming our boy doesn't get to the rat first. All I know is, from here on out, I plan to be very, very polite to this walking stick of dynamite.